Whether you are teaching your children to tell the time or just want a great craft activity, a paper plate clock is an excellent way to get talking about time as you make one. Both my boys have analogue watches and use them too.
These paper plate clocks have so many uses, from helping children to tell the time, to uses to let them know when an activity will start and end.
Before you can even start working with a paper clock, your children must understand three essential skills:
- They must be able to count from one to sixty.
- They must be able to count by fives.
- They need to know the difference between morning, noon, and night.
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What you need:
- Paper Plates
- Split Pins which are sometimes called Paper Fasteners
- Pen’s or crayons
- Card
- Paper numbers stickers (for younger children)
- Scissors
How to make a clock out of a paper plate
- Cut out the hands from contrasting card, making one longer than the other for the minute hand.
- Place the numbers round the clock, this is easier if you to the 12, 3, 6 and 9 first.
- Make a small whole in the center of the plate for the hands and use the split pin to secure
Variations – You can use two paper plates like we did to make lift up flats and put the minutes underneath. Alternatively you can add them to the outer rim of the paper plate and colour the minutes past one colour and the minutes too another colour.
If you don’t have any paper plates then you could use our paper plate clock template printable and stick to some cardboard. The real secret is the moveable hands and for that you need split pins.
Free clock printable from Mini Eco. If you don’t even feel like making your own clock, then you can print off one of Kate’s free printable here.
Love this, definitely making this for the boys. x
Oh I loved this activity as a child myself, my two loved it and I think they learn much more about time after making their own.
Draw 2 hands on the bottom of a new paper plate – a big minute hand and a small hour hand. While drawing tell your child about time, for instance that a day is 24 hours, that are divided into 12 day hours and 12 night hours, that the hours consist of minutes, and there are 60 of them in 1 hour. But don’t overload the kid with a great amount of information at once, otherwise it will be difficult for him to keep it in memory.
Such a neat idea- and handy for me too as Kitty is just getting in to trying to tell the time at the moment!
This is a fab idea! Thankfully my third child taught himself to tell the time at the age of 5 – I had no idea that he could already do it!
We’re really trying to nail my six year old learning the final bits of telling the time. It’s so hard with so few traditional clocks around these days! Will try this 🙂
Love this – excellent idea!
Love this post.
Why didn’t you publish it few weeks back? We just bought a teaching clock for £25 🙁
What a great craft idea and handy way to help little one’s learn to tell the time. We have a wooden clock toy with removable pieces which has been forgotten about in a drawer somewhere but I think I’ll be pulling out after this reminder x
Great idea, saw similar a while back on pinterest and have been meaning to do it ever since! Must get around to it some time soon 😀 x
We made one of these a while ago, it was great fun and a good way to teach children how to tell the time.
Your Comments
Arghhhh. Having slight problems tonight, obviously.
Meant to say: great idea. Must save this somewhere for later. xx
This looks fab x x
Great craft activity and learning resource.
My toddler is still a little young to understand but may make one for myself.
Never too early to teach!
That is a lovely way to teach children how to tell the time 😀
Such a great idea Jen (you have so many!), we must get some fasteners so we can do things like this. We love crafting and POD would love to have her own clock 🙂
That is a great idea. J is starting to get interested in clocks, so will give this a try.
Love this idea 🙂 my son is a bit you g for it but he is starting to understand what happens at different times of the day so may e I should give it a go!
great idea will be defo doing this thank u xx
Love this idea – trying to teach Isaac to tell the time at the moment
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